Expedition 45 commander Scott Kelly and flight engineer Kjell Lindgren prepare their spacesuits and tools in the ISS airlock. They’ll venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on October 28 and November 6. Image via NASA.[

Two International Space Station (ISS) astronauts will make the first spacewalks of their careers on Wednesday (October 28, 2015). Their spacewalk will last six hours and 30 minutes and will focus on station upgrades and maintenance tasks. The spacewalk will begin at 8:10 a.m. EDT (1210 UTC).

The astronauts will return to the station’s interior at about 2:40 p.m. EDT (18:40 UTC).

The October 28 spacewalk will be the first of two spacewalks to service and upgrade the International Space Station. The second spacewalk is scheduled for Friday, November 6.

The NASA astronauts, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, will connect power system cables on the station so spacecraft from NASA partners Boeing and SpaceX can dock with the station during flights for the Commercial Crew Program. The future missions are slated to carry up to four new crew members to the station in the near future in order to allow more research to be performed in orbit and to return American launch capabilities for its astronauts.

They will also install a thermal cover on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector that has been attached to the station since 2011.

Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit inside ISS, in preparation for Wednesday’s spacewalk. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on Wednesday, October 28 and Friday, November 6.

Bottom line: Two International Space Station (ISS) astronauts, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, will make the first spacewalks of their careers on October 28, 2015. Their spacewalk will last six hours and 30 minutes and will focus on station upgrades and maintenance tasks.

Eleanor Imster has helped write and edit EarthSky since 1995. She was an integral part of the award-winning EarthSky radio series almost since it began until it ended in 2013. Today, as Lead Editor at EarthSky.org, she helps present the science and nature stories and photos you enjoy. She also serves as one of the voices of EarthSky on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and G+. She and her husband live in Tennessee and have two grown sons.